Arne O. Holm says We’re at the Point Where European Leaders Want to Use Military Muscles to Deter the US
This is the photo that followed Trump's attack on Venezuela. Greenland next?
Comment: Greenland's member of the Danish Parliament, Aaja Chemnitz, calls for a European and Nordic military exercise in Greenland as a response to Donald Trump's threats. Diplomatic language is no longer deterring. Our closest ally must be deterred with military power.
This is a comment written by a member of the editorial staff. All views expressed are the writer's own.
Just after Donald Trump broke everything even resembling international law in his attack on Venezuela, the wife of Trump's deputy chief of staff, Katie Miller, published a map of Greenland covered in the US flag.
With the caption "Soon."
Need Greenland
On the way to the White House from his private home, Donald Trump repeated that Greenland should be American.
"We need Greenland, absolutely," he said to the press invited aboard the president's aircraft.
He wouldn't say much more than that.
Donald Trump has taken it a step further.
"Ask me in 20 days," was the poorly disguised threat against a NATO ally.
This naturally caused a stir. Particularly in Denmark, but also among European heads of state who had more or less half-heartedly protested against the US attack on Venezuela. Most were more concerned with condemning the Venezuelan governance than condemning Trump's actions.
Thus, they legitimized that Trump can do whatever he wants, or as his Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, sums up in a euphoric and adrenaline-filled speech a few hours after the attack:
"We can project our will anywhere, any time."
Another choice statement from the same Secretary of War emphasizes that we should listen to what Donald Trump says. Both because he means it, but also because he follows through on his plans.
To the degree that the threats against Greenland and Denmark, and therefore also NATO, have been attempted to be reduced to empty threats, we now know that they are real. Even if it is difficult to apprehend the consequences of such plans.
Halfhearted protests against the attack on Venezuela.
Legitimizes Russia
However, Trump's foreign policy has implications beyond the US' own ambitions to overthrow regimes with military power or the annexation of other countries. It legitimizes Russia's will to do the same.
In international media, Svalbard's future under a new world order is increasingly questioned. The speculations involve everything from US interests in Svalbard to Russia's plans for the same part of Norway.
Much of it is just that, speculation, but Trump has demonstrated the law of the strongest both in Latin America and regarding Greenland.
It will and has impacted the population of Ukraine for years, where Trump is increasingly placing the fate of the Ukrainian people in Putin's hands.
Now he has taken it a step further.
Perhaps it is therefore understandable, in all its absurdity, that the Greenlandic parliament member Aaja Chemnitz suggests an expansion of the Arctic Light military exercise.
To protect its own people and Denmark against a USA that is still referred to as our most important ally.
